Today, the 6th of Tishrei, marks the yahrzeit of the righteous Chana Schneerson, mother of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, faithful wife and helpmate of Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, Chief Rabbi of Yekaterinoslav-Dnepropetrovsk from 1909 to 1939.
Throughout the world, the memory of this woman, who became a symbol of Jewish courage and resistance to the Soviet regime, is sacredly honored. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish girls are named in her honor, as are many educational and charitable institutions around the world, including the Jewish women’s International Humanitarian and Pedagogical Institute “Beit Chana” in Dnipro.
Rebbetzin Chana is a symbol of the loyalty and devotion of a Jewish woman who always helps and supports her husband and her family – a role model who inspires Jewish women around the world.
Rebbetzin Chana was born in January 1880 into the family of the Chief Rabbi of Nikolaev, Meir Yanovsky. She received an excellent education and in 1900 married Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson.
During the thirty years her husband served as rabbi of the largest city in eastern Ukraine, Rebbetzin Chana supported her husband in every way and was his reliable partner in his holy work. After the establishment of the inhuman communist regime and the forced emigration of Jewish leaders, she and her husband, in effect, led the spiritual resistance of the Jews of the USSR. She followed her husband into exile in remote regions of Kazakhstan, where, thanks to her efforts, the righteous Levi Yitzchak was able to complete his fundamental works, and her courage became an inspiring example for millions of Jews.
In 1946, through incredible efforts, the widowed Rebbetzin was brought out of the USSR, and she moved to her son in New York. In Brooklyn, the Rebbetzin lived the last seventeen years of her life. She departed from the world on the holy Shabbos, the 6th of Tishrei 5725 (1964), and was buried in New York.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson said of his mother: “Despite all the difficulties and concerns of daily life, (my mother) took upon herself an additional concern – the concern to make possible the publication of the Torah of my father – my teacher and my rav – so that many Jews could study his explanations of the inner ideas of the Torah in the light of Chabad Chassidus. And all this in order to bring closer the true and complete Redemption by Moshiach, our righteous one, which depends on spreading the sources of Torah outward!…”
